Jason Todd | Red Hood

Gotham under lockdown looks different from Gotham on a regular night. Quieter in the wrong way. The kind of quiet that means something bad already happened and the city is holding air, waiting for the next thing. Every news channel had been running the emergency broadcast since about two in the morning, the automated alert system blasting phones citywide with the same message on repeat. Stay inside. Lock your doors. Do not engage. All of Arkham's population, the whole rogue's gallery, out on the streets at once because someone, and we still didn't have a name yet, had hit the facility's main security system hard enough to break every containment protocol simultaneously. It wasn't an accident. Someone planned it. And now Gotham was the world's worst zoo.

The bat-family split the city into sectors hours ago. Dick took the northeast. Tim and Damian were working the Fashion District and midtown together, which was either Bruce's idea of efficiency or his idea of keeping Damian supervised, probably both. Cass had the Narrows. Bruce was doing what Bruce does, pulling some kind of overwatch position while coordinating everyone through the comms like an air traffic controller who also part-times as the world's most paranoid tactician. Me, I got the Bowery. Which, honestly, tracks. Send the one with the least patience to the neighborhood that smells like piss and broken dreams. Classic...

I wasn't complaining. The Bowery was familiar in a way that sat comfortable and traumatising at the same time. I knew these streets from before the Robin days, from the years I spent surviving them when surviving was the only option I had. These blocks don't forgive anybody especially not me. I moved across the rooftops at a steady pace, scanning below through the helmet's lenses, thermal overlay running quiet in the upper left corner of my HUD. The whole sector had been sitting dead for the last forty minutes. No movement, no heat signatures outside of stray cats and one guy who was clearly either deaf or too drunk to understand what a citywide emergency broadcast meant, but I'd already clocked him as harmless and moved on.

Everyone else was inside. Smart city, for once. Then I picked up movement about three blocks east and my whole focus locked onto it like a switch got flipped. A figure, moving fast, not stumbling or wandering but actually running with intention down along the alley that cuts behind the old pawnshop. Thermal showed them as one person, adult build, no weapon signature I could immediately read but that meant nothing with half of Arkham's population currently wandering free. Civilians were told. Every person in Gotham with a working phone or a television or a neighbor got the message. Nobody with clean hands was running around out here right now. I dropped off the rooftop and hit the fire escape one level down without making much noise, already moving to cut the angle.

The chase didn't last long. Whoever this was, they were fast but they didn't know the Bowery the way I did. I knew which alleys dead-ended and which corners lead to nothing. I'd slept against some of these walls when I was a kid with no stable home to go to. I came around the corner at a walk once I knew they were cornered, no point sprinting when the geometry already handled it. The dead end was exactly where I expected it to be and the figure was right there, backed up against the brick.

I slowed my approach down deliberately, boots scraping loose gravel with each step, letting them hear me coming because this wasn't an ambush anymore, this was a conversation that hadn't started yet. The red helmet's lenses adjusted in the low light, pulling detail. I could see them, their outline, the way they were standing, the body language of someone who'd just run out of options. What I couldn't read yet was who I was actually looking at. Not one of the usual faces. I kept walking, closed maybe half the remaining distance, and stopped.

"Alright." I said, voice coming out flat through the helmet's modulator, hands loose at my sides, not reaching for anything yet. "Lockdown's been running for four hours. Every living person in this city with a television, a phone, a neighbor, or basic reading comprehension is inside right now. So either tell me what the hell you think you're doing out here, or this gets a lot more complicated for both of us."

Gotham under lockdown looks different from Gotham on a regular night. Quieter in the wrong way. The kind of quiet that means something bad already happened and the city is holding air, waiting for the next thing. Every news channel had been running the emergency broadcast since about two in the morning, the automated alert system blasting phones citywide with the same message on repeat. Stay inside. Lock your doors. Do not engage. All of Arkham's population, the whole rogue's gallery, out on the streets at once because someone, and there still wasn’t a name yet, had hit the facility's main security system hard enough to break every containment protocol simultaneously. It wasn't an accident. Someone planned it. And now Gotham was the world's worst zoo.

The bat-family split the city into sectors hours ago. Dick took the northeast. Tim and Damian were working the Fashion District and midtown together. Cass had the Narrows. Bruce handled overwatch, coordinating everyone through the comms like an air traffic controller who also part-timed as the world's most paranoid tactician. Jason got the Bowery. Which tracked. The one with the least patience assigned to the neighborhood that smelled like piss and broken dreams.

He didn’t complain. The Bowery was familiar in a way that sat comfortable and traumatising at the same time. He knew these streets from before the Robin days, from the years he spent surviving them when surviving was the only option he had. These blocks didn’t forgive anybody, especially not him. He moved across the rooftops at a steady pace, scanning below through the helmet's lenses, thermal overlay running quiet in the upper left corner of his HUD. The whole sector had been sitting dead for the last forty minutes. No movement, no heat signatures outside of stray cats and one guy who was clearly either deaf or too drunk to understand what a citywide emergency broadcast meant, but Jason had already clocked him as harmless and moved on.

Everyone else was inside. Then he picked up movement about three blocks east and his focus locked onto it immediately. A figure, moving fast, not stumbling or wandering but actually running with intention down along the alley that cuts behind the old pawnshop. Thermal showed them as one person, adult build, no weapon signature he could immediately read, but that meant nothing with half of Arkham's population currently wandering free. Civilians were warned. Every person in Gotham with a working phone or a television or a neighbor got the message. Nobody with clean hands was running around out here right now. He dropped off the rooftop and hit the fire escape one level down without making much noise, already moving to cut the angle.

The chase didn't last long. Whoever this was, they were fast but they didn't know the Bowery the way Jason did. He knew which alleys dead-ended and which corners led to nothing. He’d slept against some of these walls when he was a kid with no stable home to go to. He came around the corner at a walk once he knew they were cornered, no point sprinting when the geometry already handled it. The dead end was exactly where he expected it to be and the figure was right there, backed up against the brick.

He slowed his approach down deliberately, boots scraping loose gravel with each step, letting them hear him coming because this wasn’t an ambush anymore, this was a conversation that hadn’t started yet. The red helmet's lenses adjusted in the low light, pulling detail. He could see them, their outline, the way they were standing, the body language of someone who’d just run out of options. What he couldn’t read yet was who he was actually looking at. Not one of the usual faces. He kept walking, closed maybe half the remaining distance, and stopped.

"Alright." he said, voice coming out flat through the helmet's modulator, hands loose at his sides, not reaching for anything yet. "Lockdown's been running for four hours. Every living person in this city with a television, a phone, a neighbor, or basic reading comprehension is inside right now. So either tell me what the hell you think you're doing out here, or this gets a lot more complicated for both of us."